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Wednesday, 7 September 2011

Labor Day - The Jobs of our Ancestors: Workaday Wednesday

A prompt from www.geneabloggers.com to help us look back at the occupations of our ancestors, commeorated on Labor Day, Monday, September 5, 2011, in the United States

Trap Farm overgrown , c.1998

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My Danson family came from a rural part of Lancahsire in north west England, so occupations on the land were the norm - whether it be Ag. Lab, husbandman, carter, or cowman, with two generations reaching the status heights of being described as yeoman farmers. It was all change in the 1860's when my great great grandfather Henry Danson of Trap Farm, Carleton left farming and became a toll collector at the newly built Shard Bridge over the River Wyre, near Fleetwood.

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Great Uncle George at his station bookstall

This was an age of great social change, from rural to urban life.The period saw the rise of the seaside resort of Blackpool and fishing town of Fleetwood with a predominant theme the impact of the railway.

New occupations appeared in the census entries for the family - pointsman, railway telegraph clerk, railway porter, railway coach examiner, and railway labourer, with a related trade that of my great uncle George who worked at W. H Smith's newsagent stall on station platforms.

Trades in the family included coal merchant, rope dealer, and even tripe dealer, with Danson daughters marrying a shoemaker, joiner, innkeeper, and watchmaker.

The women were undertaking roles as laundress, and much more appealing - a confectioner's shop woman, and keeper of a sweet shop.

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About Me

I have been interested in family history for years. It all began when I was allowed as a child to look through the old family photographs and memorabilia kept in a shoebox in the cupboard at my grandfather's house. That treat started me on a fascinating ancestral trail.